I think the biggest design fail is the viewfinder. It honestly looks like an add-on finder glued to the camera. Well, if that's the case, I'd rather it was an add-on finder, and the camera was sold for $200 less.

The grip is a nice addition, as long as it is smaller than the thinnest pancake, I agree with you there. And the dials could very well be contextual, I agree, with mode changes through the menus (preferably with a touchscreen).

Would've been a much nicer looking, and more useful camera had they taken a page from the NEX 7 (touchscreen, contextual dials, EVF on the corner, popup flash, hotshoe, in a compact body that houses a sensor 3x the size).